Globalization means the increasing multi-directional political, social, cultural, and economic connections that are happening across the world. Nowadays awareness of these connections has increased and people try to take advantage of this situation and lead globalization in way that they aspire. Globalization is the result of advances in communication, transportation, and information technologies. So institutions that are more powerful in these fields can be more potent to globalize the world in their favorable ways.
Some take globalization as Americanization but I disagree, Americanization is one of the constitutive parts of current globalization, it can be replaced by Islamization, Frenchization or any other –izations. But it is obvious that some countries have more powerful effect on globalization but it is not a phenomenon unique to a specific country or region.
Regarding globalization the US and Iran have affected each other but the US effect on Iran has been greater.In recent years, regarding globalization competition, the Iranian efforts to have an important role in globalization process have been more universal rather than concentrated. The Iranian approach toward globalization has been a non-materialistic and political approach, for example its efforts to export its Islamic Revolution around the world. Iran also tries to globalize itself through politics. As a potential country Iran tires to expand its influence in region and around the world to globalize its objectives. Cultural Persian figures like Jalal al-Din Rumi and Omar Khayyam have been globalized around the world and the US through their art.
Although there is no tangible relation between Iran and the US, the American signs are pervasive in Iranian lives, from clothes that we wear to soda that we drink.
Chris Barker (2004:77) writes: “the products of global forces are localized, that is, they are made pertinent to ‘local’ concerns.”
That is the point, what the Americans do to rule over the others and globalize themselves.
Want a soda??? Here you are!!! A Coca-Cola or a Pepsi!!! Carrying a logo in your mother tongue, Persian or any other language.
Manufacturers now produce ethnically diverse dolls, like the black Barbie. Most young Iranian girls know Barbie and want to be like her when they grow up. For young Iranian boys Superman, Batman and Spiderman, Americanized superhuman, are magical heroes and the paragon of mankind. Older boys and girls follow high fashion brand like Nike and CK. Interestingly we can see girls who wear hijab and fit their chadors with a jean and a pair of Converse shoe. Another example is music; especially American hip-hop music that has created a new and popular music genre which resulted in forging a kind of subculture among young Iranian. The US also utilizes its media and cyberspaces as propelling force to dominate the world and lead the audiences to its favorable ways.
Chris Barker (2004:77) writes: “all locals are now subject to the influence of distant places.”
The key matter is the degree of that influence that runs the show.
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